There is a continuing need for coated food products such as coated meat, poultry, vegetables or fish. Usually, these coated food products are obtained by first wetting a raw or at least partially cooked, optionally frozen, product, for instance by glazing or dipping into, or enrobing with, a fluid substance such as water or batter and, subsequent to wetting, applying a particulate breading material. If desired, the steps of wetting and breading can be repeated to obtain a multilayered coating. Before storage the coating may be pre-set, for instance by pre-frying.
Well known crumb coating materials contain particles of a heat-treated starchy material. Several methods for obtaining these materials are also well known. One of these methods involves the baking of a loaf of bread which, after staling, is ground into conventional bread crumbs. Another method involves the cooker extrusion of a mixture of flour and water, for instance to obtain so-called Japanese crumbs.
Crumb coated products are often stored at frozen conditions. For consumption the products are heated, for instance by deep or shallow fat frying, oven baking, roasting, microwave heating or grilling. One of the factors which negatively affects the quality of crumb coatings is the absorption of moisture by the coating, which can result in soggy, disintegrated, unattractive coating layers. Relatively high environmental moisture levels often result within a short time in absorption of moisture by the crumb coating. Relatively high environmental moisture contents can occur during microwave-heating of coated products. During microwave-heating food products are thoroughly heated, thus resulting in moisture migration from the center of the product to the crust portion. The air surrounding the product is, however, not substantially heated by the microwaves. The low temperature of the surrounding air prevents effective moisture removal from the crust, thus giving high moisture coating layers of inferior quality.
There is need of crumb coating materials which are resistant to high water activities without substantial degradation of quality. Specifically, there is need a for crumb coating materials which allow the microwave heating of the coated food products while maintaining the quality of the coating layer, particularly after extended periods of frozen storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,260,637 to Rispoli deals with bread crumb compositions which are said to adhere to moistened comestibles during coating and cooking without the need to batter coat the comestible. In essence, relatively large bread crumbs are coated with an adhesive and then adhered to a comestible. The Rispoli patent seeks to coat a previously formed crumb structure with a thin layer of adhesive particles by pan coating. The coated particles are adhered to a food comestible by moistening the surface of the comestible. There is little, if any, agglomeration of the crumb composition.
The instant invention seeks to build a crumb-like structure from a large number of small particles by agglomeration which are suitable for conventional adhesion to a food comestible with a batter system.
It will be found that when there is a preponderance of large particles with a low phase volume of fine particles which become sticky on wetting, then the fine particles coat the surface of the large particles, (i.e., Rispoli crumb). Conversely, when there is a preponderance of small particles then these become adhered to each other and grow to form agglomerates (i.e., crumb of the invention).
It has been found that novel coatings manufactured using agglomeration techniques are significantly improved with respect to their quality, particularly after microwave heating.